Walk Me Home (39 page)

“You ever going to forgive me for that?” she asks, surprising both of them.

Alvin doesn’t answer right away.

Finally he says, “Not just like that. Not like throwing a switch. Words don’t cost much. But if you keep standing behind some of the things you’ve said so far this trip, I expect we can get from here to there.”

Going through Sacramento, Carly wakes up again.

“How much longer can you drive?” she asks him.

“I’ll have to stop over at least one night.”

“I can drive.”

“Nice try.”

“What am I going to do now, Alvin?”

Alvin sighs.

“You got a couple options, it seems to me.”

“Like what?”

“You could be an emancipated minor. Sixteen’s old enough for that. You’d have to prove you can put a roof over your own head and feed your own self. Thing is, you got nobody to argue against it. So I’m not sure anybody’s trying to get in your way on that anyhow. What you’re not old enough to do is be a legal guardian for your sister. But in a year and a half you can. And she’s doing fine where she is now.”

“Think Delores would let me stay?”

“You’d have to ask Delores about that.”

“She’ll say no. She hates me.”

“No. She doesn’t. Not at all.”

“She acts like she does.”

“You act like you hate her, too. Do you?”

“I sort of thought I did at first. But no. I don’t hate her.”

“Trouble with you and Delores is you’re too much alike.”

“Is that a joke? We’re nothing alike.”

“You’re so alike it’s funny. That’s why you two get along worse than a cat and a dog. Both so headstrong. Two stubborn women, both trying to out-stubborn each other. Now don’t you ever tell anybody I said that because she’s an elder and I’m supposed to look on her with nothing but respect. And I respect her plenty, but I still got eyes. And it doesn’t help you acting like you know everything. Oh, but that’s right. You don’t know anything about anything anymore. Maybe that’ll make things a little better between the two of you. They sure as hell couldn’t get much worse.”

Carly chews on the inside of her lip a little. She pulls the feather necklace out from under her shirt. Examines it again for damage. It looks a little worse for wear. Maybe less so than Carly. But they both survived.

She looks up to see Alvin watching her.

“Where’d you get that?”

“Jen gave it to me.”

“And where’d Jen get it? No, never mind. Stupid question. When we get back on Wakapi land, don’t let anybody see you with that. A traditional Wakapi would take that away from you.”

“Why? It was a present. What’s wrong with that?”

“It’s Wakapi medicine. It’s not for just anybody. No offense. There’s a system in place for bringing somebody into the circle, and then they can be privy to the old wisdom. But that Delores…Well, she’s one of a kind. You know her Wakapi name means something along the lines of ‘Stubborn’? Well. It’s kind of hard to translate. Best I can tell you is
it means, ‘She who relies on her own counsel.’ The unwritten second half of that thought being ‘and pretty much ignores everybody else’s.’ Now you see why I say you two are birds of a feather?”

When she wakes up again, it’s nearly dark. They’re not moving. They’re parked at a highway rest area, and Alvin is standing outside the car, stretching his back.

The outside of Carly’s right hand aches. Where she hit that beer bottle. It’s strange to have the pain break through suddenly like that. She knows it didn’t just start. It’s been aching all day. But she just now took that in. It’s strange not to feel what you feel.

Or maybe it’s that other parts of her have been hurting worse.

She turns on the overhead light and looks at it closely. It’s deeply bruised and swollen enough to worry her.

She looks up to see Alvin dropping into the driver’s seat again.

“That hand doesn’t look so good,” he says.

She holds it out to him so he can take a closer look.

“Might be some little fractures in there. Couldn’t say. When we get home, we might need to get that looked at.”

There he goes again with the word
home
. But Carly needs a home so badly she chooses not to question it.

“You tired?” she asks him.

“Very. Trying to decide whether to look for a motel or just put this seat back and take a nap. Think I’ll do that second one for right now. See how far that takes me. And maybe…just maybe…when daylight rolls around, you can spell me for a bit. You got a license?”

“No, but I’ve got a learner’s permit.”

“California?”

“Yeah. California.”

“Well, we’ll do it early, then. Before we get over the state line.”

He levers his seat back with a sigh. Sets his hat over his face.

Carly holds and rubs her right hand a minute longer.

Then she asks, “Why did he pick
her
?”

“Teddy?” From behind the hat.

“Yeah, Teddy.”

“Why did Teddy pick Jen?”

“Yeah.”

“As opposed to…”

“Me.”

She doesn’t even bother with the shame. She’s too tired. It feels like too much trouble.

He tips the hat up with one hand.

“I know you must mean that in a general sense. Like maybe referring to whatever liking-her-better sort of thing you think must’ve been behind his picking her and not you. Because I know you didn’t mean you wanted him to try some stunt like that on you.”

“Right. No. I didn’t mean that. Thanks for knowing I didn’t mean that.”

“Kind of stings anyway, though, huh?”

“Kind of. Is that the sickest thing in the world?”

“More or less human, I suppose.”

Then he lets the hat down again.

Carly watches him. Though there’s nothing really to watch. He’s just lying there with his hat over his face. Apparently he’s not going to answer the question. But that shouldn’t surprise her, she thinks. Probably it’s an unanswerable question.

Then he tips the hat up again and says, “Teddy is a child molester.”

“That’s not answering my question, Alvin.”

“Yes, it is. You just don’t get what I’m saying yet. Teddy is a child molester. And Jen is a child.”

Carly says nothing. Because nothing more needs to be said.

CALIFORNIA

May 22

“That was a nice little town,” Alvin says. “Pretty.”

The waitress is setting breakfast in front of them. Carly’s bacon and scrambled eggs. Alvin’s omelet with vegetables inside and salsa on top. He picks up the bottle of Tabasco, unscrews the lid, and shakes about twelve drops of sauce onto the salsa.

“Who puts Tabasco sauce on salsa?”

“People who like their salsa hot.”

“What town was nice?”

“
What town?
That’s a weird question.”

“Well, we’ve been through so many.”

“I don’t mean the ones we went
through
. I mean the one we went
to
.”

“Oh. Trinidad.”

“Yeah. Trinidad. It was nice up there. Didn’t you think?”

Carly takes a bite of scrambled egg. It tastes fine. There’s nothing wrong with it. It just tastes like scrambled egg. But she wants it to taste like more. So she opens the ketchup bottle and tips it over her plate. Waits. Nothing comes out.

“I guess,” she says. “I liked it a lot when I first saw it. Didn’t look as nice on the way out, though. Besides. I couldn’t get warm. The wind and the fog just cut right into my bones, and I could never get warm.”

“And when you were on the Wakapi, you were always complaining how you could never get cool.”

“Oh. That’s true. I guess that’s a problem, huh?”

Carly hits the end of the bottle with the heel of her hand, and about three times more ketchup than she wanted lands right on the bacon. Right where she didn’t want any.

“Yeah, for
you
,” Alvin says.

They eat in silence for several minutes.

Carly watches people through the window as they get out of their cars and make their way into this roadside diner. An old couple who stop to buy a newspaper from a dispenser on their way in. A family with three little kids who have to fold up two strollers and leave them in the entryway. Trade them for booster seats.

Seems like they all have routines. Which Carly figures is another way of saying lives. She can’t help wondering how that would feel.

“I appreciate how you’ve been buying my food,” Carly says.

“Can’t let you starve.”

“But I’ve got to tell you something about that. I’ve actually got eighty dollars. This nice old lady who gave me a ride loaned it to me. But she was very specific about what it was for. She gave me the money in case I needed a room. You know, if it was night and I didn’t have any place to stay. But I didn’t need to use it for that. And I didn’t feel right using it for anything else. Because it wasn’t
for
anything else. It was for a room. So the reason I didn’t tell you I had that money is because I think I ought to send it back to her now.”

“OK,” Alvin says.

She waits, still half expecting him to say more.

“Maybe we could even stop in Fresno and I could give it back to her.”

“We’re past Fresno.”

“We are? I didn’t see us go through Fresno.”

“We didn’t. We took the I-5. It’s faster.”

“Oh,” Carly says. “OK.” She eats a few more bites. “Only thing…I sort of wanted to tell her it meant the world to me how she did that. But I guess I can write her a note and wrap the money up in it and mail it.”

She waits to see if he has anything to add to that. Apparently not.

“And I wanted to tell you it meant the world to me how you drove all the way up there to get me. But I haven’t figured out the right words just yet.”

“Those’ll do,” he says. Without looking up from his plate.

“But I don’t just want to keep eating on your dime. I want you to write down what you spend on my food. In my little notebook. And I’ll pay it back. When I can. When I’ve figured out how to earn some money.”

“Shouldn’t be hard,” Alvin says. “You’re a good worker. Seem to be. If you’re willing to work, you can always make a little here and there. Speaking of which. I need to put some new fence in over at my place. You show up and help me, we’ll get her done in a day and we’ll call it even on the food.”

“Yeah, OK. Thanks. I’ll still owe her for the bus ticket, though. Even after I give her back her eighty dollars.”

“Ah. More details coming out about how you managed to beat me there. And here I thought you were magic. Just flew through the air or closed your eyes and beamed yourself from one place to the other. Just all neat like that.”

“That would’ve been nice,” Carly says.

“Don’t argue. You ran into some unexpected kindness. That’s a type of magic all its own. That’s like magic wearing a disguise, like a false nose and glasses, so you think it’s something more everyday than all that.”

She waits for him to open the car door for her. The way he always seems to want to do. Instead he’s holding the keys in her direction.

“You want to drive from here to the state line?”

“Hell, yeah!”

She climbs into the driver’s seat. Buckles up. Alvin climbs in beside her.

“Think we could put the top down?” she asks.

Alvin pushes a button on the dashboard. A little motor whirrs somewhere, and the top goes back. All by itself. Just like that.

“Everything changes,” he says. “Huh? When I was going off to college, I had a convertible. Not a new one or anything. You wanted the top down, you had to
put
it down. You know. With your hands.”

Carly shifts into drive and then checks all around the car. In both side mirrors. And in the rearview mirror, even though she plans to go forward. She does it to impress Alvin with how careful she can be.

“Only problem is, you still don’t have a hat,” he says as she pulls out of the lot. “You’ll get all sunburned again.”

“Might be worth it.”

Alvin just shakes his head.

A few minutes later, when they’re doing sixty-five on the I-40 East, the wind in Carly’s hair, he says, “We’ll have to stop and get you a proper hat. That floppy old-lady thing is just not you.”

Carly grunts her disgust.

“I think she did that on purpose. Just because she knew I’d hate it.”

He doesn’t say anything for a moment, so she glances over at him. Catches a wry half smile.

“Answer number one, I’m sure that was the only hat she had to give you. Answer number two, I have to allow for the possibility that you might be right about that all the same.”

“If you buy me a hat, you have to write it down in my notebook.”

“Tell you what. I was gonna stop tonight at a real live motel. Get us each a room. Which would you rather? Sleep in a real room? Or sleep in the car again and have the hat?”

“I’d rather have the hat. But you still have to write it down.”

“Carly. It’s a gift. I’m offering you a gift. When somebody offers you a gift, you just take it and say thank you. See, this is what I mean. About how you and Delores are so alike it’s funny. If you two ask for some help, or act like you could use some, or like you’re grateful for some, I guess you feel like it means you’re admitting you needed it. Why do you think she’s so happy having Jen around the house? She’s going blind, in case you didn’t notice. But she can’t bring herself to say she shouldn’t be living on her own anymore. But just look how happy she is now that she doesn’t have to. Somebody wants to give you what you need, just say thank you. Especially if you didn’t have to ask.”